LOSING LARRY SUMMERS GETS EXPENSIVE:

It’s official: Larry Ellison is walking away from a promise to donate $115 million to Harvard University.

The Oracle Corp. founder and chief executive, the world’s 15th-richest person, made headlines in 2005 when, in an interview with The Chronicle, he pledged to make a major donation to Harvard to study world health. But Ellison decided against the donation after Harvard President Lawrence Summers announced his resignation earlier this year. Summers will leave the university on Friday.

And yet, I think the biggest damage to Harvard wasn’t economic.